SAMPLESAMPLE PAGESPAGES The 72-page, A4 handbook for Waterways & Railways between Thames and Severn, with text, photographs, maps, a chronology and a reading list, is available for purchase, price £15.00 including postage and packing. Please send a cheque, payable to Mike Higginbottom, to – 63 Vivian Road Sheffield S5 6WJ WaterwaysWaterways && RailwaysRailways betweenbetween ThamesThames && SevernSevern Brook Madison Hotel, Oxford Road, Stratton St Margaret, Wiltshire, SN3 4TL 01793-831333 Tuesday July 24th-Monday July 30th 2012 2 Contents Introduction .................................................................................... 7 Stroudwater Navigation ..................................................................... 9 Thames & Severn Canal .................................................................. 11 Wilts & Berks and North Wilts Canals ................................................ 15 The Avon and Kennet Navigations .................................................... 18 Kennet & Avon Canal ..................................................................... 20 Engineering features: Reading-Newbury ..................................... 25 Engineering features: Newbury-Crofton ..................................... 25 Crofton Pumping Station ......................................................... 26 Engineering features: Crofton-Avoncliff ..................................... 27 Avoncliff Aqueduct ................................................................ 28 Dundas Aqueduct ................................................................... 29 Somersetshire Coal Canal ......................................................... 30 Claverton Pumping Station ....................................................... 32 Engineering features: Claverton-Bath ......................................... 33 Gloucester & Sharpness Canal .......................................................... 34 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) ............................................ 39 Clifton Suspension Bridge ................................................................. 40 Great Western Railway .................................................................... 42 Great Western Railway locomotive engineers and major standard- gauge passenger locomotive classes ............................................ 46 Didcot .................................................................................. 48 Swindon ............................................................................... 50 Swindon Station ..................................................................... 51 Swindon Works ...................................................................... 51 Swindon Railway Village .......................................................... 53 Box Tunnel ........................................................................... 56 Bristol Temple Meads Station ................................................... 58 SS Great Britain ............................................................................. 61 Midland & South Western Junction Railway ........................................ 63 Savernake stations and hotel ..................................................... 65 Swindon & Cricklade Railway ................................................... 65 Appendix: Box Hill quarries............................................................. 67 Background reading ....................................................................... 70 3 Wilts & Berks Canal: Skew Bridge, Swindon (former Midland & South Western Junction Railway) Wilts & Berks and North Wilts Canals The Wilts & Berks Canal (always so called, apparently because of the laziness of a clerk drafting the Parliamentary bill) was originally conceived as a link between the Thames & Severn Canal and the River Thames at Abingdon, intended to by-pass the difficult section of the Thames downstream from Lechlade. The authorisation of the Kennet & Avon Canal Act in 1794 led the Wilts & Berks promoters to negotiate a connection instead with the K&A at Semington and a 52-mile route via Melksham, Wootton Bassett and Swindon to Abingdon, with branches totalling six miles to Chippenham, Calne, Longcot and Wantage. This route was authorised by an Act of 1795, which sanctioned capital of £111,900, later augmented with a further £200,000 by an Act of 1801. A proposal to cross the Thames on an aqueduct at Abingdon and to connect with the Grand Junction Canal at Marsworth, 36½ miles away, was never pursued, though it was briefly revived in 1819 and again in 1828 as a 26-mile link from Abingdon to the Grand Junction branch from Marsworth to Aylesbury, which had opened in 1815. The engineer was Robert Whitworth, who had previously been involved in the Stroudwater Navigation and the Thames & Severn Canal, until 1799 when his son William took over responsibility. Though 4 Date Section (Constituent companies italicised) June 4th 1838 Paddington-Maidenhead Bridge July 1st 1839 Maidenhead Bridge-Twyford March 30th 1840 Twyford-Reading June 1st 1840 Reading-Steventon July 20th 1840 Steventon-Faringdon Road August 31st 1840 Bristol-Bath December 17th 1840 Bath-Wootton Basset Road Faringdon Road-Chippenham May 31st 1841 Cheltenham & Great Western Union Railway: Swindon -Cirencester June 14th 1841 Bristol & Exeter Railway: Bristol-Bridgwater June 30th 1841 Chippenham-Bath July 1842 Bristol & Exeter Railway: Bridgwater-Taunton May 1st 1844 Bristol & Exeter Railway: Taunton-Exeter June 12th 1844 Didcot-Oxford July 8th 1844 Bristol & Gloucester Railway: Bristol-Gloucester May 12th 1845 former Cheltenham & Great Western Union Railway: Kemble-Cheltenham May 30th 1846 South Devon Railway: Exeter-Teignmouth December 30th 1846 South Devon Railway: Teignmouth-Newton Abbott June 20th 1846 South Devon Railway: Newton Abbott-Totnes December 21st 1847 GWR Berks & Hants Railway: Reading-Hungerford May 5th 1848 South Devon Railway: Totnes- Laira September 5th 1848 Wilts, Somerset & Weymouth Railway: Chippenham-Westbury November 1st 1848 GWR Berks & Hants Railway: Reading-Basingstoke April 2nd 1849 South Devon Railway: Laira-Plymouth October 8th 1849 Slough-Windsor & Eton Central June 18th 1850 South Wales Railway: Chepstow-Swansea September 19th 1851 South Wales Railway: Gloucester-Chepstow East July 19th 1852 South Wales Railway: Chepstow East-Chepstow (via Chepstow Bridge) March 11th 1852 West Cornwall Railway: Truro Road-Penzance January 20th 1857 Trowbridge-Bathampton via Bradford-on-Avon and Limpley Stoke July 1st 1857 GWR Devizes Branch: Holt Junction-Patney & Chirton May 2nd 1859 Cornwall Railway: Plymouth-Truro November 11th 1862 GWR Berks & Hants Extension Railway: Hungerford-Devizes via Savernake August 24th 1863 Cornwall Railway: Truro-Falmouth September 8th 1863 Bristol & South Wales Railway: Bristol-New Passage (ferry for South Wales) 5 Great Western Railway landmarks: top – Paddington Station; above – Maidenhead Bridge 6 Great Western Railway: Swindon Mechanics’ Institute (1986) Along with the terraced housing for families, there was a hundred-bedroom model lodging-house for single men, which became known as the Barracks. This was converted into flats in 1861 to serve the families of Welsh ironworkers recruited for the Company’s rolling mills. In 1869 the building was sold for use as a Wesleyan Methodist Chapel. In 1960-2 it was again converted as Swindon’s first Railway Museum, which closed in 1999. The building now serves as the Platform Youth Centre. Three public houses were provided within the village – the Baker’s Arms, the Cricketer’s Arms and the former Thomas’s Beer House, now the Glue Pot. As soon as the housing was under construction, the GWR began to provide the other facilities that a model village community required. St Mark’s Church, was begun in 1843 and consecrated on the Feast Day of St Mark, April 25th 1845. It was designed, along with the adjacent vicarage and school, by George Gilbert Scott and his assistant William Boynthon Moffatt with its tower deliberately placed to the north to make it prominent to passing trains. The chancel with its side chapel and vestry was added by Temple Moore in 1897. In the churchyard lie the locomotive engineers Joseph Armstrong (d June 5th 1877) and George Jackson Churchward (d December 19th 1933). (Most of the Bristol Street School was demolished in 1881.) The Mechanics’ Institute began in 1844, and moved into a specially designed building, provided by the GWR in the guise of the New Swindon Improvement Company, on May 1st 1855. This was designed by Edward Roberts of London, and included an office, a meeting room, a temperance refreshment room, and hot and cold baths. Some of the Institute’s members formed the New Swindon Co-operative Society in 1853, and a second group subsequently split to form the New Swindon Industrial Society. An octagonal covered market and reading room was replaced in 1891 by an assembly hall, designed by 7 The Midland & South Western Junction Railway was an amalgamation of two independent cross- country railways, the Swindon, Marlborough & Andover Railway [SMAR] and the Swindon & Cheltenham Extension Railway [S&CER]. Running against the grain of the established routes of the Great Western Railway, the M&SWJR illustrates many of the absurdities of Victorian railway competition. It was, nevertheless, remarkably long-lasting and though much of its infrastructure has disappeared it retains the affection of rail aficionados, few of whom can now remember it in action. The Swindon, Marlborough &